Date Presented 04/05/19
Primary Author and Speaker: Cassie Matthys
Additional Authors and Speakers: Jenna Blausey, Jessica Campbell, Reba Duran, Ashleigh Giles, Sarah Miesner, Brooke Schroeder
Contributing Authors: Daniella Smolyansky, Kristin Valdes
PURPOSE: The purpose of this poster is to present the rationale and perceived benefits of actively engaging as a professional organization member and to understand the rationale behind the decision that rehabilitation professionals made when electing not to become members.
DESIGN: The participants of this descriptive study were recruited from an interdisciplinary organization of rehabilitation professionals including occupational therapists and physical therapists. An email survey was sent out to 5,777 rehabilitation practitioners and 1,271 practitioners responded. The response rate was 53%. All responses were included in the study.
METHODS: The data was collected from a sixteen question survey that was created by two professionals who are familiar with survey design. The pilot survey was electronically mailed to research survey experts for additional review. The sixteen questions were to be answered by multiple choice, open-ended format, or by Likert scale. The first survey was sent out on January 29, 2018 and the survey was sent out again two weeks later on February 12, 2018. Participation in the survey was completely voluntary and the option to not respond to individual questions was provided. Data was collected from Survey Monkey at the close of the response window and was themed by Occupational Therapy Doctorate students.
RESULTS: The rationale provided by respondents for not joining a professional organization includes the cost, uninformed of membership benefits, and being either retired or an out of country practitioner. Practitioners that chose to be members rated the top three benefits as: subscription to scholarly journals, member only pricing on educational products, and updated resources on legislative and reimbursement issues related to practice.
Out of the total of 1,271 respondents, 489 (39%) identified as being non-active members of the interdisciplinary organization. Out of these respondents, 1,098 were occupational therapists. There were 341 respondents (27%) that stated they were members of the American Occupational Therapy Association and 926 (73%) stated that they were not a member. Out of these respondents, 158 were physical therapists. There were 53 respondents (34%) that stated they were members of the American Physical Therapy Association and 105 (66%) stated they were not a member. Four respondents chose to skip this question.
From the survey, 202 (16%) respondents characterized themselves as millennials (1977-1995), 552 (44%) respondents characterized themselves as generation X (1965-1976), 499 (40%) respondents characterized themselves as baby boomers (1946-1964), nine (1%) respondents identified themselves as other, and nine respondents skipped this question.
Out of the survey respondents, 581 (46%) worked in a hospital based practice (inpatient or outpatient). There were 222 (18%) respondents that answered that they worked in private therapist owned practice. Additionally, 216 (17%) respondents answered that they worked at a physician owned practice. There were 155 (12%) respondents that worked in a corporate therapy owned practice and 91 (7%) respondents answered other.
CONCLUSION: Many practitioners identified cost as the most apparent factor for not joining a professional organization. Many current professional organization members value their membership and find it beneficial not only for themselves, but for furthering the profession as well.
References
Deleskey, K. (2003). Factors affecting nurses decisions to join and maintain membership in professional associations. Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing,18(1), 8-17. doi:10.1053/jpan.2003.18030008
Escoffery, C., Kenzig, M., & Hyden, C. (2015). Getting the Most Out of Professional Associations. Health Promotion Practice, 16(3), 309-312. doi:10.1177/1524839914566654
